India's highest number of 4 inter-state border disputes in NE

Guwahati/Aizawl, Aug 1 The recent and bloodiest Assam-Mizoram inter-state border clash was again a reminder that the decades-old four boundary disputes among the northeastern states need to be resolved swiftly. However, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that these border rows might be resolved next year when India celebrates 75 years of Independence.

In the backdrop of the violent border clash between Assam and Mizoram, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai told Parliament on July 27 that there are a total of seven inter-state border disputes at present in the country and four such disputes are in the northeast region.

The seven inter-state border disputes include Haryana-Himachal Pradesh, UT of Ladakh-Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra-Karnataka, Assam-Arunachal Pradesh, Assam-Nagaland, Assam-Meghalaya and Assam-Mizoram.

Experts, senior IPS officers and commentators said that the inter-state boundary disputes in the mountainous northeastern region remained unresolved over several decades as the successive governments at the Centre had made only very feeble efforts to settle them.

Several northeastern states, barring the former princely states of Tripura and Manipur and the Himalayan state of Sikkim, were carved out of Assam following India's independence in 1947.

Arunachal Pradesh became a full-fledged state on February 20, 1987. Till 1972, it was known as the North- East Frontier Agency